Citroen e-C4 Review 2023

Introduction

If you're indecisive, then the Citroen e-C4 could provide the answer, as it’s a car that isn’t 100% certain what it is.

It could claim to be a hatchback, a coupe or an SUV, and while some might say it's none of them, Citroen may well claim it’s all of them.

The 'e' in e-C4 stands for 'electric', so this car has no petrol station forecourts to contend with.

It is the latest addition to the growing family of electric vehicles from the French marque, following in the tyre tracks of the C-Zero, the e-Berlingo and the e-SpaceTourer.

The Citroen e-C4 is based on the new C4, a coupé-SUV that replaces the previous C4 hatchback and C4 Cactus crossover.

Although they are, for the most part, identical, the Citroen e-C4 does have a few unique touches that set it apart from its petrol and diesel siblings, which we’ll come on to shortly.

The e-C4 aims to appeal to consumers who want a stylish, spacious, and smooth electric car that offers a blend of practicality, performance and personality.

While it's not yet due for a mid-life facelift, Citroen has updated it with revised powertrains and more range to add to its growing list of clever tech.

At A Glance

The e-C4 has a distinctive, quirky, futuristic look, with a sleek and aerodynamic shape that combines hatchback elements, an SUV, and a coupé.

The front features a large chevron grille made up of chrome bars, part of which forms the Citroen badge in the middle, alongside LED headlights with V-shaped daytime running lights and a sculpted bonnet.

Around the side, there’s a notable coupe-ish sloping roofline, protruding creases and black cladding.

The rear of the Citroen features LED taillights with a 3D effect, a diffuser, and a piano black strip directly underneath the similarly coloured spoiler.

The French motor will certainly divide opinion, with some no doubt thinking it's a work of wonderous abstract art and others who think it's monstrously ugly.

In all honesty, Citroen has never been afraid to show some craziness in its car design, especially in recent years. But we’d argue the e-C4 doesn’t wear the leftfield looks as well as some of the brand’s other models.

The e-C4 has some exclusive details that differentiate it from the regular C4, such as blue accents on the grille, badges and wheels, and an ë logo on the tailgate.

It is available in various colours, including metallic, pearl effect and solid options.

Key Features

The e-C4 comes in four trim levels: Sense, Sense Plus, Shine and Shine Plus.

The Sense grade is the entry-level model. However, it still comes with 18-inch alloy wheels, a 10-inch touchscreen infotainment system with DAB radio, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and a 5.5-inch digital instrument display. It also boasts cloth and black synthetic leather seats, dual-zone climate control and keyless entry/start.

The Sense Plus trim adds LED headlights with high beam assist, a leather steering wheel, automatic air conditioning, wireless phone charging and a rear-view camera.

The Shine trim upgrades to meaty 19-inch alloy wheels, dark tinted windows, an electric parking brake and blind spot monitoring.

Shine Plus is the top-of-the-range model that comes with leather seats with a massage function for the driver, heated front seats with electric adjustment and adaptive cruise control.

Only one electric motor is offered on the e-C4, which produces 110PS.

Of course, if you prefer to lease something other than an all-electric car, the standard Citroen C4 is also available with a couple of similarly powered petrol units.

Range & Batteries

The e-C4 has a 50kWh battery pack that provides a range of up to 219 miles.

That is slightly less than the Kia e-Niro and fewer than the Volkswagen ID.3, but it’s still enough for most daily journeys.

The range can vary depending on driving style, road conditions and weather. It will also rest on on which driving mode you choose: Eco, Normal and Sport.

Eco mode significantly reduces the power output and limits the top speed to maximise efficiency, while Normal regulates power, albeit with less reduction.

Only the Sport mode will enable the Citroen e-C4 to utilise its full clout and achieve its top speed of 93mph.

Performance & Drive

As with most electric cars, the e-C4 bursts into life with an instantaneous shove of torque when you press the accelerator pedal.

The seamless acceleration provides an excellent first impression in what’s a reasonably smooth and refined – and, of course, quiet – car to drive.

However, it still takes 10.0 seconds for the e-C4 to get from 0 to 62mph. So, admittedly, despite the enthusiastic shove off the line, the performance is not that pacey compared with some challengers like the Hyundai Kona Electric.

The electric Citroen is good enough for most situations, but as you get up to motorway speeds, it seems a little sluggish, which might make things trickier if you regularly drive on fast roads to get to work.

We mostly found ourselves in Sport mode, only switching down to Normal mode around town centres and merely using Eco mode when we were in a five-minute queue at a set of traffic lights.

In truth, the e-C4 doesn't have the outright performance to make power-reduction battery-saving modes necessary.

The Sport setting also sharpens up the steering and makes the throttle response more sensitive. In this mode, it handles pretty well for an electric car, with plenty of grip and only an average amount of body roll in the corners.

Ride quality is generally comfortable and composed on most surfaces, thanks to the progressive hydraulic cushions suspension system that absorbs bumps and potholes well.

It is good to drive for a car that’s built to be absorbing. But don’t expect to have fun in it – it's built as a comfortable cruiser that's as serene, quiet and relaxed as its lack of engine note suggests.

Those who prefer taking corners like your hair’s on fire will want to look at another car to lease.

The e-C4 also has regenerative braking that can recover energy when decelerating or braking and feed it back to the battery. It feels reasonably consistent, although you'll get maximum benefit from this in Eco mode.

Thankfully, the strength of the regenerative braking can be adjusted by using the paddles behind the steering wheel to increase or decrease resistance. The highest level allows for one-pedal driving, where the car can slow down significantly by lifting off the accelerator pedal.

Charging

The Citroen e-C4’s 50kWh battery pack can be charged at different speeds depending on the type of charger used.

The fastest way to charge up the e-C4 is to use a 100kW rapid charger, which can replenish the battery from empty to 80% in 30 minutes.

However, these chargers are still not very common in the United Kingdom and can be expensive. A more realistic option is to use a 50kW rapid charger, which can charge the battery from 0 to 80% in around 50 minutes. You can find out more about making the most out of every charge in our guide to picking your ideal electric car charger.

These chargers are more widely available in Britain and can be found in many motorway service stations and public car parks.

Alternatively, the Citroen e-C4 can be charged at home or work using a 7.4kW wallbox or public charger, which can fully charge the battery in around seven-and-a-half hours. This is ideal for overnight charging or when the car is not in use during the day.

The e-C4 comes with two charging cables – a Type 2 cable for connecting to a wallbox or public charger and a three-pin plug cable for connecting to a domestic socket. This is worth noting, as some electric cars don’t come with charging cables. What’s more, the cables can cost hundreds of pounds, even before you’ve thought about forking out for a wallbox charger to be installed at your home.

The three-pin plug means you can charge the Citroen at home without a pricey wallbox, but it’ll take up to 24 hours to top the battery from empty to full.

Running Costs & Emissions

The e-C4 is economical and eco-friendly, with zero emissions and low running costs.

The actual cost of charging the e-C4 depends on the tariff and the time of charging. But despite the dramatic rises in UK electricity costs, it’s still a tad cheaper than filling up with petrol or diesel.

The e-C4 also has low maintenance costs, as electric cars have fewer moving parts and less wear and tear than combustion-engined cars.

The Citroen e-C4 is also exempt from road tax for now – this will change in 2025 and will be backdated to include zero-emissions vehicles registered since April 2017. But, although road tax rates haven’t been announced, they’re still likely to be favourable.

Being an electric car, it also attracts a meagre Benefit In Kind tax for company car drivers.

Regarding reliability, Citroen tends to sit around mid-table in the dependability stakes, often beating premium brands but lacking that cutting edge that so many Far East manufacturers seem able to reach.

And even though you're leasing, you might as well know a three-year, 60,000-mile warranty is offered as standard. The 60,000-mile ceiling only applies to the third year, meaning the first two are unlimited, but that's still far from as generous as the five-year warranties offered by Hyundai, let alone the seven-year warranty from Kia.

The battery gets its own eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty, which means Citroen will replace it at any point if it cannot reach 70% of its original capacity within the warranty period. But, as we say, you’re leasing, so you won’t need to worry about all that.

Interior & Technology

The e-C4 has a stylish and spacious interior with high-quality materials, modern design and plenty of technology.

It has an impressively futuristic layout, and despite the use of more rigid plastics in places, it has a reasonably premium feel, making it one of the best electric cars in its class.

The dashboard is dominated by a 10-inch touchscreen infotainment system that is easy to use and features Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Bluetooth, a DAB radio, a TomTom SatNav and online services.

Its screen is clear and crisp, as well as being pleasingly responsive. The system also features voice control, so it’ll respond to your voice commands, which works reasonably well.

Thankfully, physical controls have been retained for the air conditioning system.

Behind the steering wheel, there’s a 5.5-inch digital instrument display that can be customised to show different things, such as speed, range, maps, media and phone information.

The display is clear and sharp but not as large or advanced as some rivals.

Practicality & Boot Space

Finding a comfortable driving position is pretty straightforward. However, we've only got manual seat adjustment in our entry-level Sense model, so it's more time-consuming than cars which offer electric adjustment, which is only standard on the Shine Plus trim.

At least we get lumbar support included as standard – plus there’s a generous amount of legroom and headroom for both front and rear passengers.

Fitting three adults in the back is doable, although perhaps not comfortable for longer journeys.

If the kids are coming along instead, the rear seats also have Isofix child seat mounts on all models.

The e-C4 offers 380 litres of space with the rear seats up or 1,250 litres with the rear seats folded in a 60:40 split.

That is not bad, but it’s marginally less than the Volkswagen ID.3 and significantly less than the Kia e-Niro.

In the e-C4’s boot, you’ll find a flat floor and a low-loading lip, which makes it easy to load and unload items, especially if they’re a fair size or weight.

The boot also has an underfloor storage compartment where the charging cables can be kept.

Safety

The standard C4 was put through its paces by Euro NCAP back in 2021, earning a four-star rating.

That is alright, but most manufacturers these days can comfortably score five stars, despite Euro NCAP making its crash-testing criteria more stringent in 2020.

The C4 scored 80% for adults, 83% for children and 63% for safety assists, and this rating will be valid for the e-C4.

Citroen may feel the safety assist score needs to be more reflective of the e-C4, given the car's launch brought with it plenty of technology as standard.

Six airbags, electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, a tyre pressure monitoring system, hill start assist and a pre-sense system, which can detect pedestrians and vehicles and apply emergency braking if needed, are all included.

It also has lane departure warning, speed limit recognition, driver attention alert and parking sensors on all models.

The Shine Plus trim adds more safety features, such as adaptive cruise control with stop and go function, lane keeping assist, blind spot monitoring, traffic sign recognition and emergency assist.

More features are available with the optional Safety Pack Plus, which we’ll come on to in a moment.

Options

Citroen offers a limited range of optional extras for the e-C4.

Some of the options include body colours that cost extra, such as pearl white and elixir red premium metallic, plus various blacks and greys, as well as different styles of alloy wheels.

You can also go with a dual-colour finish by specifying a Perla Nera Black roof, while tablet cradles and a deep red colour pack are also available.

The Safety Pack Plus that we mentioned earlier gets you a radar-assisted advanced active safety brake, speed limit information, extended traffic sign recognition, driver attention alert, and lane departure detection.

Rival Cars

The e-C4 faces intense competition from other electric cars in the leasing market, such as the Volkswagen ID.3, the Kia e-Niro, Hyundai’s Kona Electric and the Peugeot e-2008.

The Volkswagen ID.3 is more spacious than the e-C4, with a larger battery pack that provides a more extended range of up to 336 miles.

The Kia e-Niro offers more practicality and efficiency car than the Citroen, with a bigger boot that can hold 451 litres.

Driving enthusiasts may want to check out the Hyundai Kona Electric, which provides greater entertainment and superior power and range.

The Peugeot e-2008 offers a smooth ride, too.

Other cars worth considering include the Nissan Leaf and the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense.

The MG 5, meanwhile, continues to win plenty of plaudits.

Verdict & Next Steps

The Citroen e-C4 is an excellent choice for anyone looking to lease a quirky yet comfortable electric car that offers a nice blend of practicality, performance and personality.

It is appealing, with its stylish and spacious interior, smooth and reasonably refined drive and glut of technology included as standard.

However, there are more entertaining electric cars to drive and, in practice, the e-C4 doesn’t quite live up to its crazy looks in terms of fun behind the wheel.

Despite a spacious and very nice interior, some competitors have it well beaten on performance, range, and practicality. And drivers who are often in a hurry may find its lack of pace frustrating.

Overall, some of its rivals make a more convincing argument, but we’re impressed with the level of refinement in some areas. Plus, it ticks plenty of boxes.

As a result, the e-C4 is still a very decent choice

Where to next?

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**Score based on Select’s unique meta score analysis, taking into account the UK’s top leading independent car website reviews of the Citroen e-C4. 

**Correct as of 06/10/2023. Based on 9 months initial payment, 10,000 miles annually over a 24 month lease. Initial payment equivalent to 9 monthly payments or £2,429.91 (Plus admin fee) Ts and Cs apply. Credit is subject to status.